Travelers by Mountains and Streams by Fan Kuan

Fan Kuan
- A Chinese landscape painter from Song Dynasty (960-1279)
- Known for his landscape painting.
- He was initially inspired and followed the style of Li Chen, who is also a Chinese
landscape painter, but later realized that he had to take nature as his teacher instead of
other artists and their works.
- He went to mountains and isolated himself to study the effects of atmospheric, weather,
and seasonal changes on the scenery.
- https://www.comuseum.com/painting/masters/fan-kuan/

Travelers by Mountains and Streams

- Hanging scroll, ink and light color on silk, 206.3 x 103.3 cm, National Palace Museum,
Taipei
- Most representative work of Fan Kuan
- Was inspired by nature when he traveled and went up to the mountain.
- The painting creates a relationship between human and the natural world in a way that it
is used for mindful contemplation as Fan Kuan based his painting on the Daoist principle
of becoming one with nature.
- Fan Kuan intends the viewers (including himself) to realize how small he or she is
compared to the big picture of nature.

References:
[PDF FILE] AP Art History 2016 Scoring Guidelines

Fan Kuan: Chinese Painting. (n.d.). Retrieved January 15, 2020, from
https://www.comuseum.com/painting/masters/fan-kuan/.

Fan Kuan: Travelers among Mountains and Streams. (n.d.). Retrieved January 15, 2020, from
https://www.comuseum.com/painting/masters/fan-kuan/travelers-among-mountains-and-
streams/.